Club Texas: Building Community in Electronic Music Fan Culture through Online Collaboration

Club Texas: Building Community in Electronic Music Fan Culture through Online Collaboration is a report of results from a content analysis that analyzes the role of participatory culture for community development and social capital within a local underground EDM (Electronic Dance Music) scene in the major metro areas of Dallas Fort Worth (DFW). This study recognizes DallasDanceMusic.com (DDM) as the first and largest message board community to support the EDM community in Dallas since its launch in 1999.

Putnam theorizes that during our modern age of technology and information, large-scale social institutions are forced into less prominent roles in public social life. Still, he believes in the strength of strong personal bonds between individuals who maintain connection and perhaps friendship. He concludes “We get together with friends about twice as often as we attend organized meetings and we hang out at bars at twice as often as we engage in community services.” (1641/14255, 1991).

Robert Fancher

Within a study of archived virtual community data, Wasko determined that low-activity users within a virtual community (often called “lurkers”) can indeed react to social opportunities within the network and potentially go on to share information with the message board community for the very first time, “when they perceive that it enhances their professional reputations, when they have the experience to share, and when they are structurally embedded in the network”
(35).

There have always been more lurkers than active users in the history of the DDM site; the total user traffic has become more passive over time since 1999. These less active users contribute to a participation gap on the site. Some of this may be due to the fact that the site is increasingly automated with fewer moderators or gatekeepers to review and approve posts.

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